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I'm currently working on a project and I'll be sending it off to get mastered in the near future. So what should I bounce it down to, DAT or CD-R? I'm currently working in 24/48.

I've heard that DAT has lower error rates than CD-R, but as far as I know DAT's are only 16 bit, right?

If DAT is the preffered media. .

Then what DAT machine do you guys recomend? (If it makes any difference) I need one that has a SPDIF coax input, as I will be using outboard converters.

I'd also like opinions on DAT media. Which is the highest quality?

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Massive Mastering Sat, 12/04/2004 - 12:28

If you're mixing ITB to DATA (PCM, wav, aiff), just burn the PCM files to a CD.

If you're going through outboard, DAT is nice, but if it's a matter of 24-bit PCM files vs. 16-bit DAT, I'll take the PCM files in 24-bit.

If you ARE going through analog, that would be a good time to set your recording to 44.1kHz. If you're mixing ITB, you might try rendering to 44.1kHz - WIth many systems, the SRC during the mix is more transparent than applying the SRC after.

Keep in mind that It might not be a bad idea to also check with your mastering guy (gal?) and find out what the "house favorite" is... For example - If they use a Masterlink, it may be your best bet may be to just mix to 24-bit AIFF files and use Alesis' CD24 ISO Builder program. Then the sample rate doesn't matter if there's an analog coversion from 48kHz.

anonymous Sat, 12/04/2004 - 13:24

Thanks for the info John. I'm mixing ITB so I'll probably just burn it to a CDR as a 24/48 wav. file.

Massive Mastering wrote:
Keep in mind that It might not be a bad idea to also check with your mastering guy (gal?) and find out what the "house favorite" is

Oh BTW I was planning on having you master it. I won't be done for a few more months though.